Klipsch forum + google search = SUCKS

[Dan1045]

nuff said.

[sfogg]

I've had better luck with the google search then with how it was.

Shawn

[m00n]

nuff said.

If you're having difficulties try giving more detail, maybe someone has had the same issue and can help you. Simply saying something sucks gives nothing for anyone to work with.

[Daddy Dee]

Dan,

Not to be picky, but don't you technically mean: "suks worse"?

OR just when you thought search couldn't get any worse.....

[Johnny dB]

It does suck a lot harder than it used to. How do you search all topics started by one person. You used to be able to click their avatar and then click posts by_________ and it would give you their last 10 posts. Now it gives you d*ck!

[m00n]

Oh goodness... I know what you guys are talking about now. I just tried to search the forum for a thread I KNOW exists and the google results came up blank....

[Deang]

I think it's related to all of the down time we've had lately. It will probably mean we at least have the forum up most of the time. It's probably only temporary.

[JJkizak]

Google is getting too big for it's britches. I would write software to block them out. They have way too much info at their fingertips. Next catagory will be "How many times do I fart every day?".

JJK

[Born2RockU]

I wish we had the ORIGINAL search engine, 2 versions before this new WEBSITE google engine; the one a few years ago. It was simple and efficient.

[jwc]

ditto

I was able to utilize the search engine from the old forum well. Been a bummer ever since the change...google or not.

[DrWho]

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/665533/ShowPost.aspx

[Amy]

Yes, please read DrWho's link. The new search is only temporary, and the alternative is to put up with the forum going down randomly. Hopefully, the next release of the software will be better. From what I've heard so far, it will be.

[Tom Mobley]

four words:

Linux

Apache

MySQL

PHP

does you webmaster ever look around at other sites? this deal

with the weirdness around picture posting (huge black areas, black text

running over onto black border areas, etc) is not unavoidable, other

busy sites don't do this.

[Amy]

Yes, Tom, he did a lot of research on this. It's hard to tell how a forum will behave until you actually implement it. We chose this one because it matches the rest of our website.

[Daddy Dee]

Well, I think keeping the forum running is preferable to having a good search function, and hopefully the situation is temporary.

Does anyone know if the google search will search for posts from before the new forum started.

I have searched using some terms for particular posts I know to exist and page through every single link and not finding the post I'm looking for.

[whtboy]

I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't want to step on anyone's toes and I think it's cool of Klipsch to host a forum for the user community without censoring content and I value this forum and the people I've made contact with as a result.

Also, it's easy to critisize the product of someone's work when you aren't aware of the context and the constraints they had to operate under. For example, it's often a herculean effort to get a (better) Unix-based solution put in place when you already have an existing ASP infrastructure that isn't about to get kicked out the door, especially if there isn't a Unix admin officially available to support the enviroment.

And yes, Apache/Mysql/PHP all run on Win32, but configuring them is often as difficult for a Win32 admin as admin'ing IIS is for a text-mode Apache guy like me =)

That being said, Apache, PHP/Java and MySQL/Postgresql *are* typically far more reliable and performant solutions for hosting Internet web apps than IIS/ASP/MS-SQL. There are also a number of existing (and free or low cost) forum solutions that are very feature-rich and stable. vBulletin, phpbb, Jive, etc.

Add to that -

- the constant stream of security patches that have to be applied to the MS platform, which means more maintenance windows, reboots, downtime, etc.

- the unpredictable nature of Windows compared to Unix

Anyway, I just want to second the idea that there are already cheap/free, feature-complete and stable solutions available out there that would be on par with the best of the breed (they are best of breed in many cases).

Here's a shortlist of what I would personally like to see, and I think these are things most people would agree would bring a great deal of value to the forum:

1. Fully indexed searching, search by user, subject, content, etc., ala vBulletin

2. Sticky threads for FAQ info, rather than forcing users to search for reference material

3. A wiki allowing users to organize knowledge-base type pages in addition to the dialogue-oriented BBS paradigm - there's a HUGE resevoir of knowledge in the minds of a number of forum users here. If that knowledge could be mined and put into a user-maintained wiki environment, the benefit to everyone would be tremendous.

4. Better thought-out email notification, with links to new posts rather than linking to the 1st post of a 12-page thread

That being said, there are some horribly written Unix/PHP apps out there too - postnuke being the first that comes to mind. Just because it runs on Apache, doesn't mean it's good =)

I *would* like to say thanks to everyone who is involved in supporting this forum. It's got a few warts but I'm really glad it's here!

Thanks!

-jacob

[heresy2guy]

Yes, please read DrWho's link. The new search is only temporary, and the alternative is to put up with the forum going down randomly. Hopefully, the next release of the software will be better. From what I've heard so far, it will be.

Amy,

I actually liked the old, original search function better - the one used before the "new" forums came online.

What I found most useful about that particular search function is that it would simply give you your results by individual thread, not the individual responses (or posts) WITHIN individual threads. For instance, if there were 1,000 results for the searched term "Heresy", but those results were found in, say, only 10 individual threads, then your search result would yield the titles of those 10 individual threads and nothing else. This allowed you to see exactly how many threads there were on a given topic and allowed you to then search each thread individually.

The "newer" method of searching, which was employed when the new forum came online, was to list all 1,000 postings individually, and, to make matters worse, the postings (results) wouldn't be in any particular order, which meant you had 1,000 links to browse and then click through, which didn't make for efficient searching.

In my opinion, I'd rather have my search return 10 threads on the term "Heresy" then 1,000 individual postings on the term "Heresy".

Of course, the newest Google method of searching is worse still, but at least it's only temporary.

Perhaps we can get the old, original method of searching back?

Thanks,

H2G

[seti]

four words:

Linux

Apache

MySQL

PHP

does you webmaster ever look around at other sites?  this deal

with the weirdness around picture posting (huge black areas, black text

running over onto black border areas, etc) is not unavoidable, other

busy sites don't do this. 

Preach it brotgher!

But they have already purchased idealbb which was really good you can't totally blame them for a software vendor upgrade gone wrong. I don't think the problem is the database as MS SQL is very very solid and one of the few MS products I'll brag about. The .Net search function is hidious though and thats what ideal needs to work on. Just think MS is hoping to corner the internet search engine market : )